


Comfort doesn't need to be Complicated

by Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler



Series: Inconveniently Emotional Insomniacs [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Other, Safe For Work, despite the summary I swear there is no smut here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6280153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler/pseuds/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rona believes that isolationism is a great idea. She is wrong. Fideltin comforts Rona in the only way he knows how. Thankfully, he knows what she likes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfort doesn't need to be Complicated

**Author's Note:**

> I just realised that the summary might make it sound NSFW  
> It's safe. Angsty, but safe.

Master Zhang was different after the Emperor's Fortress, but Fideltin Rusk didn't have to be a genius to notice that. She had suddenly pulled away from the doctor, and didn't venture into the lower layer of the ship unless called by her astromech, T7-01. She also didn't talk to her fellow Jedi Knight, Kira Carsen, nearly as often as before. The red-haired human girl had expressed her concern for her master only non-verbally, but it was still tangible. 

Rona also kept watching the two holocalls she had received from someone called Bengel Morr from Tython. According to Knight Carsen, Bengel and Rona had shared the same Master, Orgus Din. Rona had retrieved Bengel from the Dark Side, and now, after Bengel's rehabilitation, they mourned Orgus's death together. 

Rusk had spent past three months in a cage, periodically being released as a "training exercise" for "Acolyte" Rona, under the command of the Inquisitors and that damn Emperor's Wrath. She hadn't been herself then. Not only with the whole falling to the dark side BS, but in the way she had fought then. She had charged forward, reckless and selfless, hell-bent on destruction without a single thought to self-preservation. It went against all that Rusk knew about Rona, little enough that it was.

And then there was the laugh.

As a 'Sith apprentice', Rona had had the run of the space station. She was as much of an insomniac then as she had been in the flight from Tython, and so she occasionally was seen, or more often heard, wandering the halls at night. She would start out laughing, maniacal and hysterical. It would slowly get louder as she neared the prison cells, but eventually her laugh would falter into choked sobs and broken phrases, sprinkled generously with the names of her crew members. They hadn't been sure if it was deliberate torture from the Emperor (Carsen’s opinion) or if it was Rona's subconscious fighting back (Rusk and the doctor thought that was more probable.) In any other circumstance, Rusk would've flushed with colour at the musical way she sighed the syllables of his first name, but the entire crew had silently agreed to never mention the incidents that happened aboard the Emperor's Throne.

Fideltin now pondered just what was possessing him now, as he delicately held the clay mug in his hands. It was the same mug she had drunk from when she shared a conversation with him in the galley three months prior, and it was filled with the same tea it had been then. 

Rusk fervently hoped that he wasn't being presumptuous. Doc, Kira, and even T7 had not been able to get more than a brisk sentence out of her since they reclaimed the ship, and, as the last remaining crew member who wasn't a frakking  _ Sith Lord _ , he both needed and wanted to try and reach her. 

Fideltin took a deep breath.  _ Here goes nothing _ . His bare knuckles tapped against the durasteel door, and for a split-second he genuinely feared what would happen if she did open the door.

The door slid open, but Ronadia was sitting across the room, knees drawn up to her chest and her back against a wall, gazing listlessly at the flame of one of her meditation candles. It smelled, somehow, like mint. Fideltin walked in and sat down several inches from Rona, to give her space. He set the mug between them, and waited. 

Rona's dark brown eyes looked illuminated but shadowed in the dim lighting, like a candle casting long shadows in a dark room. Her gaze slowly moved from the flame to Fideltin, and he hoped that he wasn't imagining the faint upward twitch of her lips. 

Almost too quick for him to process, Rona had picked up the mug, wrapped her hands around it, and slid closer to him, to rest her head against his upper arm. 

Rona closed her eyes and inhaled. Mint from the candles, peaches from the tea, but where was that scent coming from…  _ There it is, _ Rona thought with satisfaction. Dark caff (one cream, no sugar), standard “scentless” Republic Army-issue soap, and… was that plasma exhaust? It probably came from re-calibrating his plasma cannon, but the scent reminded her so strongly of building her lightsabers on Tython that she laughed a little bit, more of a chuckle in the depths of her chest. With her pressed up against him, Fideltin could feel her laughter, and Rona felt him relax against her at the sensation.

It was good of him to check on her like this. No pretenses, no pity, just sympathy and maybe worry. Okay, it was a generous amount of worry. Rona could tell from his aura. She wasn’t nearly as good as her grandmothers or Uncle Vector, but auras came naturally to her. And it helped that Fideltin was easy to just  _ be _ with. 

“Thank you, Fideltin.”

“Any time, Rona.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rarepairs. I have no regrets.


End file.
